Kate Pierson

“I used to have a protest folk band in high school, and I wrote all my own songs. Then, in the B-52s, we would write collectively.”

“In the late '90s, we kind of took a sabbatical, and I got an invitation to play with a Japanese band and formed a supergroup called NiNa. It was Yuki from Judy and Mary and Masahide Sakuma from The Plastics, a Japanese equivalent of the B-52s. It went to No. 1 in Japan.”

“When I was little, I used to think, 'That's the way people in the future are gonna dress! They'll be wearing space suits, and it will be all silver, all the time. It's gonna glitter.'”

“I had really long hair, and we had this hairdresser, Laverne, that was in Athens. And she did my hair up really big. And she said, 'Honey, when you hang your head over the bed and make love, that hair is not going to move.'”

“The inspiration for our vocal harmonies was sort of Appalachian. It's sort of at weird intervals, and it almost has an Appalachian kind of feel to it. The harmonies were really spontaneous. And the way we jammed, we would just get into a trance.”

“Cindy had two kids. We did manage to keep playing and doing summer tours with the Go-Gos, the Pretenders, and Blondie.”

“Everyone has that experience in a club where a doorman doesn't pick you out.”

“We've known Cyndi Lauper since she was in 'Blue Angel'; we did a TV show with her back in '79 or '80. We don't have any competition; we're complementary.”

“I think more people feel like they're outside of the mainstream these days - there's more people who are doing their own thing, feeling that it's not bad to be a weirdo and respecting other people's differences. And all that kind of goes into the big ol' B-52 philosophy.”

“I know, being a band that's mostly gay and has women in it, I just think that there are the male icon bands: they are always - and they deserve it - but they are always touted as, 'These guys are heavy-duty.' I think bands, because we have a sense of humor, we are not always taken as seriously.”

“There's this whole split personality thing of being a farm girl and a rock and roll girl.”

“Back in high school, I had this folk protest band, and I used to write all the time. And then, when I got in The B-52s, we began to write collectively, collaboratively - most all of our songs are written by jamming together.”

“Usually, when we write in The B-52s, it's quite a collaborative process. We really take hours - and sometimes days - jamming, and then we listen and listen to them and go, 'Oh, let's use this part, and then this part.' It's really like a collage.”

“The Beatles had a huge impact on me. I did 'Strawberry Fields Forever', and we worked it out in an open tuning. That's such a beautiful song, and I think I did it in a different way.”

“There was just one time when the band took a big break, and I did that Nina project in Japan in 1999.”

“We have always appealed to people outside of the mainstream. Constantly, we get people coming up to us and saying, 'I was just the freakiest one in high school. I was the only one who kept playing the B-52's.'”

“I've always wanted to be a musician. I love music; like, I probably sang when I was born.”

“I like harmonizing with other people, but a lot of times, I do harmonize with myself.”

“Five people in a Volkswagen station wagon without equipment. Now we tour with six people in a van.”

“I was named on the worst-dressed list at the Grammys a couple of years ago. I had on Tom Ford, and I thought it was the most amazing dress ever. But I got put on the worst-dressed list. Luckily, at least I was pictured alongside Adele, J-Lo, and whoever - all these superstars who were also called worst-dressed - so that was a good thing!”